Solving crosswords is a great way to usefully spend time exercising your mind and refreshing forgotten knowledge. Some people make this occupation their main hobby, while others - even a source of income. Among them there are erudites who are able to solve even the most difficult crossword puzzle in a matter of minutes. However, this art is not so difficult to learn.
What is a crossword puzzle?
The classic crossword puzzle is a puzzle consisting of empty cells, each of which is designed for one letter. The cells are filled in according to the given meanings of the conceived words. A crossword puzzle is considered solved when all empty cells are filled with letters.
Puzzles similar to crossword puzzles have been discovered in the excavations of Pompeii. However, it is believed that in their present form they appeared at the end of the 19th century. The first surviving crossword puzzle was published in 1875. Since then, a huge number of crosswords have been published and solved. In addition to the classic version, various varieties were invented, but the basic idea remained practically unchanged, and the guessing person still needs to fill in the empty cells with the necessary letters, relying on dictionary definitions or graphic clues.
Many professional "crossword puzzles" start notebooks in which they enter all the difficult words and their definitions. Often, after that, they do not even need to look for the answer in a notebook, and the entry is made only for memorization.
How to develop the erudition of a crossword puzzle?
Learning to solve crossword puzzles as quickly as possible requires not only increased practice, but also a certain methodological approach. When starting a new crossword puzzle, first of all, you need to enter horizontally and vertically all the words in the definition of which you are sure of. This will give you some famous letters in the rest of the words that you can't figure out yet. The next step is to answer the multiple-choice questions. Using the fact that some of the letters are already known, choose the appropriate ones from all the options. Acting sequentially, you will leave blank only those cells in which words unfamiliar to you will be encrypted.
Solving crossword puzzles strengthens memory, develops erudition and trains thinking, therefore inveterate "crossword puzzles", as a rule, are interesting interlocutors.
Now you can start working with reference books and searching for answers on the Internet. Of course, this path looks somewhat dishonest, but after all, the authors of crossword puzzles also use additional literature. In addition, with the right approach, you will not just rewrite a word from the dictionary into a crossword puzzle, but try to remember it. For example, for training, you can find out the answers to difficult questions, but do not enter them into a crossword puzzle, but put it off for two or three days, and then try to remember the answers. This will allow you to put the difficult word in long-term memory so that you can retrieve it from there if necessary. In fact, the number of difficult words used by the compilers of crossword puzzles is not that great, and a person is quite capable of memorizing them all.
